Partnering with platforms: What provider CEOs and boards must ask Big Tech

Odgers’ Chris Hamilton and Mike Drew discuss the rapid dominance of Big Tech in healthcare and what executive leaders can do to successfully navigate this landscape

Imagine your health system is approached by a major tech company offering a “data-trust” layer that connects your electronic medical records to patients’ devices.

The promise is seamless identity, data sharing, and analytics that will elevate patient experience.

The temptation is obvious. Yet once these platforms are embedded, they rarely leave.

The healthcare sector is entering an era where the question is no longer whether to partner with Big Tech, but how to do so without losing control.

Why Big Tech Now Demands a New Leadership Posture

Technology giants are no longer experimenting with healthcare. They are embedding themselves in its core infrastructure.

Amazon’s expansion of its virtual clinic, Apple’s deepening of its health records ecosystem, and Microsoft’s healthcare cloud strategy illustrate a decisive shift from pilots to platforms.

Recent research by Chartis confirms that these firms are building permanent, scaled offerings across infrastructure, analytics, and patient engagement.

Becker’s Hospital Review has catalogued more than a dozen active partnerships between Big Tech and health systems, a sign that this new phase of collaboration is already underway.

These platforms bring immense capability in user experience, identity, and data orchestration.

Their scale and sophistication often surpass what any single health provider can match.

Yet the imbalance of power is stark.

When providers integrate with Big Tech platforms, they enter a relationship where control over data, access, and monetisation can quickly tilt away from them.

Negotiation, therefore, must be strategic, not opportunistic.

At the centre of this new reality lies what might be called the “middleware” or overlay layer—the space where data, identity, consent, and experience converge.

A 2024 CHIME report found that 90 per cent of healthcare leaders believe fragmented identity data is already undermining patient experience and retention.

Grand View Research projects the healthcare identity and access management market, valued at $1.63 billion in 2024, will grow at a rate of 17 per cent annually through 2030.

Whoever masters this layer will control the gateway to digital trust and consumer engagement.

The Executive Capabilities That Matter Most

To navigate this landscape, health systems need executives who can bridge clinical, technological, and strategic worlds.

The first is the ecosystem leader. Whether titled Chief Ecosystem Officer or Head of Partner Strategy, this person must design partnerships that protect value while aligning innovation goals.

They require a mix of commercial acumen, regulatory understanding, and the credibility to negotiate with tech partners on equal terms.

The second is the Chief Data and Identity Officer.

As identity governance becomes central to both compliance and patient experience, this role must own the trust architecture that underpins the organisation’s digital ecosystem.

The explosive growth of the identity and access management market shows why this is now a strategic, not technical, function.

A third capability lies in patient experience.

A Chief Experience or Consumer Engagement Executive ensures that the brand and care philosophy remain intact even when external platforms handle front-end interactions.

This requires a product mindset, user experience fluency, and sensitivity to the human dimension of care.

Equally vital is legal and governance leadership that can translate partnership contracts into clear lines of accountability and ownership.

The board must also be supported by executives who can coordinate across IT, clinical, legal, finance, and operations to ensure alignment between internal readiness and external partnerships.

The Questions Every Board Should Ask

Before signing any agreement with a platform provider, boards should interrogate where control will truly reside.

Who owns the patient identity layer, and who governs consent? Can the organisation exit the partnership cleanly if needed?

How will profits, insights, and algorithms derived from shared data be divided? What interoperability standards are required, and who dictates them?

How will patient trust and brand integrity be preserved if the partner handles key parts of the consumer interface?

These are not operational details. They are questions that determine strategic sovereignty.

Without clear answers, providers risk ceding control of their data, their brand, and their long-term role in healthcare delivery.

From Questions to Health Tech Leadership Hiring

As these partnerships deepen, boards must look for leaders who can translate complex technology contracts into strategic levers.

Experience in cross-industry collaboration is essential.

Executives who have worked at the intersection of technology and regulated sectors, such as fintech or telecoms, understand how to balance innovation with compliance.

Data governance and privacy expertise is also critical.

The ability to implement federated data models, design consent frameworks, and align technical infrastructure with regulatory obligations will increasingly separate successful partnerships from those that fail.

Equally important are leaders with a product sensibility.

Healthcare has often treated experience design as secondary, but in a world where Big Tech shapes the consumer interface, experience is strategy.

Finally, negotiation and coalition building matter as much as technical skill.

Executives must be able to stand across from a Big Tech counterpart with equal fluency in business language, risk, and technology.

From Strategy to Execution

Before entering any agreement, health systems should assess their internal readiness.

This includes evaluating the strength of their API layers, consent systems, and data governance frameworks.

Modular or pilot contracts can be used to test compatibility and mutual accountability without committing the entire organisation.

Governance oversight should be formalised through dedicated partnership committees that review performance against defined service levels and monitor risk exposure.

Critically, investment in internal infrastructure should precede partnership.

A provider that lacks strong identity systems, interoperability frameworks, and clear governance boundaries will inevitably concede leverage to a partner that does.

The goal is not to isolate from Big Tech but to integrate from a position of strength.

This requires a cultural shift.

Providers must cultivate what might be called “platform literacy” across senior leadership.

This is a shared understanding of how ecosystems function, how value flows, and where control points exist.

This is as much a leadership development challenge as it is a technical one.

The Takeaway for Provider CEOs and Boards

Big Tech is now a structural part of healthcare. The opportunity lies in partnership, not resistance. Yet the risk is that those partnerships become dependencies.

For provider CEOs and boards, success depends on asking the right questions and recruiting leaders who can safeguard the organisation’s most strategic assets: data, identity, experience, and trust.

The alliances struck today will define who leads and who follows in the AI-driven healthcare ecosystem of tomorrow.

The providers that thrive will be those that partner with clarity, govern with confidence, and retain ownership of their digital destiny.